Voice From Past Is Her Dad’s

In the Patterson family, it’s like father, like daughter.

Kelly Patterson, a Granada Hills High freshman, wears the same No. 51 her father, Bill, wore when he played basketball for the Highlanders in the early 1970s.

Kelly, a 5-foot-10 forward, is averaging 7.6 points and 10.7 rebounds for Granada Hills, with her father shouting encouragement from the stands at every game.

Attending Kelly’s games is a trip down memory lane for Bill, who played for two seasons on the Granada Hills varsity before graduating in 1974.

A former assistant basketball coach at Royal High, he has been coaching his daughters’ youth teams.

Bill’s booming voice can often be heard above all others, and Kelly loves it.

“He’s pretty much just encouraging me at the games,” she said. “We usually talk about the games afterward, but he doesn’t criticize me too much. He just tries to help.

“And I trust what he says. I know he knows a lot about the game, and he knows me and what I can do better than just about anyone else.”

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North Hollywood’s first-round City Section 4-A game against Locke has been moved up a half hour to 5 p.m. North Hollywood plays host to Los Angeles in a boys’ game in the second half of a doubleheader, and the start time of that matchup also has been pushed up, to 7 p.m.

A previously scheduled school fund-raiser--a hypnotist show--prompted both time changes.

“If we win, I get in free,” North Hollywood Coach Rich Allen joked about the show. “If we don’t, I have to pay.”

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Sylmar, which plays at Eagle Rock in a 3-A game at 5 tonight, has been bolstered by a trio of transfers.

Veronica Ramos and sisters Giselle and Michelle Jimenez stepped onto campus in September and right into the Spartans’ starting lineup.

Ramos, a junior forward, is averaging a team-high 17.3 points after coming to Sylmar from Van Nuys. The Jimenez sisters transferred from Alemany, bringing height--and heightened expectations.

Michelle Jimenez, a 5-11 junior center, is averaging team-highs of 10 rebounds and six blocked shots a game. Giselle Jimenez, a senior forward, is the team’s second-leading scorer and third-leading rebounder, averaging almost eight points and seven rebounds.

“When I first saw them, I said, ‘We’re going to have some good talent,’ and I thought we could do pretty well,” Sylmar Coach Cody Carter said. “I thought we’d get to this point, but it’s just now coming together for us. We’re just starting to peak right now.”

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Nakeisha Perkins, Grant’s senior center, has a school-record 1,018 rebounds in three seasons on the varsity. She had 17 rebounds in each game against Monroe and Van Nuys last week, giving her a record 369 this season.

Perkins also has 381 points this season, another record. Perkins is averaging 15.9 points and 15.4 rebounds going into Grant’s 4-A game tonight at 7:30 against Westchester at Grant.

Sophomore guard Leslie Mui is another record-setter. She has 91 three-point baskets in two seasons. Her 43 this season is eight shy of the school season record. She had 48 last year.

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Poly players were perhaps inspired by attending an annual breakfast meeting of the Coaches of Los Angeles Women’s Sports (CLAWS), which was hosted by Poly on Thursday morning.

The keynote speaker was L.A. Sparks Coach Julie Rosseau, former coach at perennial City Section power Washington High.

Poly plays host to Franklin in a 3-A game tonight at 5:30.